Reserved Brown makes statement for Kings

Associated Press

May 28, 2012Updated: May 28, 2012 7:59pm

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. — If Dustin Brown stands up in the Los Angeles locker room before the Stanley Cup Finals opener Wednesday night and delivers a stirring, emotional speech that would make Mark Messier proud, his teammates won't know how to react.

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“Well, he's not a rah-rah guy,” veteran Kings defenseman Matt Greene said. “We don't have too many of those guys in the room. But he knows how to lead, and he does it by example.”

Brown prefers showing to telling, whether it's with a timely goal or a bruising hit. The Los Angeles captain's playoff performance has demonstrated something quite clearly to the Kings: Behind his leadership, they're capable of winning the team's first title.

Brown's hard-hitting, high-scoring play has been the biggest revelation of the postseason for the eighth-seeded Kings, but his quantum leap forward began during the regular season. Brown's run of standout play started right after he was prominently featured in trade-deadline rumors linking him to Toronto and beyond, forcing the forward to wonder whether he would have to move his young family away from his only NHL team.

“Of course it's concerning to you, but I tried to just concentrate on what I could control,” said Brown, the NHL's third-leading postseason scorer (16 points in just 14 games). “I just focused on hockey and getting this team to the playoffs, because I felt like we had a team that could do a lot if we got there and started playing together. We felt like we owed it to the fans here to take a shot instead of worrying.”

The Kings' long-suffering fans are always near the forefront of Brown's mind when he discusses this playoff run. He realizes Los Angeles has enjoyed only one previous run to the Finals in 45 years of existence.

“This is the most successful we've been, but it's not where we want to end up,” Brown said.